Disinformation the CIA would be proud of

In George King’s yankee blog I found a quote from Girardi regarding everyones favorite flamthrower:

“Joba is competing for a spot in the starting rotation right now,” Girardi said of the 22-year-old right-hander who dominated in 19 relief appearances last season, going 2-0 with a 0.38 ERA and fanning 34 in 24 innings. “We are preparing him as a starter. We will look at the pitching staff as a whole and decide what the best fit is. We will look at it at the end of March and see where we are.”

Is it just me or has this guys’ status changed as much as the federal deficit?  Set his role, let him prepare.  Game, set, match.  Earlier in the offseason I was leaning toward having him start.  But, now?  Give him the 7th and/or 8th, depending on back to back appearances, pitches thrown, and Jupiter in its third phase of the Lion – that last bit is the newest spin on the Joba Rules. 

And speaking of the rules, can we stop calling it this now?  This saying should have been put to bed once Torre declined the “insulting” offer from the Yankee brass after the ALDS.  Maybe its just my poor ass, but if you call $5m insulting, anyone within earshot who works a real job [ie, anything but sitting on a bench in a baseball uniform occasionally being roused from catnaps and shooting shitty Subway commercials] should be allowed to rabbit punch you in the back of the head.

But, in the hotel press conference in Westchester last October, Joe declined and was praised for his humility, while the front office was condemned for shunning an icon.  Joe walked out on $5M, put on his Monopoly Guy monocle and top hat , summoned his butler to pull up his solid gold rocket car and hit the dusty trail.  <<Just trying to say the Yankees paid this man a ton of money, no seriously I looked it up and his cummlative salary would have weighed over 2000lbs if it was in all in $20’s and loaded onto pallets.>> 

So we said goodbye to Old Joe who traveled across the country, and league, in his endeavor to prove it wasn’t all the players and the unlimited budget that brought success to the Yankees.  Oh, and I’m pretty sure the added knowledge of Scott Proctor’s soon to be torn labrum is just an added bonus as Joe attempts send this guy to the luny bin.  Seriously what does he have against this guy?  I wonder if Scottie Not-to-Hottie wakes up in cold sweats after having dreams of Torre walking slowly while still gaining on Scott, somewhat  like how Jason Vorhees never seemed to move more than 3mpg yet you could never lose him. 

 So, in summation:

George King writes a blog?!? 

Joba still has no predefined role.

Retire Joba rules.

Joe Torre ’s  Scott Proctor.

~jboogz

Messing with Sortable Stats

So I finally signed up for a Baseball Prospectus account and I’ve been throwing data ranges in and playing around with spreadsheets for the last couple of hours, yeah I know I’m a total nerd.  Here’s one I just was looking at:

 

NAME	YEAR	IP	PITCHES	P/IP	Pitches per Out	BB9	SO9
Chien-Ming Wang	2007	199.3	2860	14.35	4.78	2.66	4.7
Mike Mussina	2007	152	2393	15.74	5.25	2.07	5.39
Ron Villone	2007	42.3	667	15.77	5.26	3.83	5.31
Andy Pettitte	2007	215.3	3395	15.77	5.26	2.88	5.89
Mariano Rivera	2007	71.3	1126	15.79	5.26	1.51	9.34
Roger Clemens	2007	99	1584	16	5.33	2.82	6.18
Philip Hughes	2007	72.7	1235	16.99	5.66	3.59	7.18
Luis Vizcaino	2007	75.3	1290	17.13	5.71	5.26	7.41
Kei Igawa	2007	67.7	1219	18.01	6	4.92	7.05
Brian Bruney	2007	50	918	18.36	6.12	6.48	7.02
Sean Henn	2007	36.7	741	20.19	6.73	6.63	6.87

A couple of things before I get to what I noticed, first of course this is just Yankee SP/RP.  Second, I cut out anyone who pitched less than 30 Innings as I wanted a larger sample than what that would provide. 

Now, look at the P/IP.  As I thought, Wang comes in with the lowest total; that heavy sinker mitigates long innings when you get the two for one DP.  Then the correaltion between P/IP and BB9 /  SO9 jumped out at me. 

There seems to be an inverse propotion of P/IP to BB9 /SO9.  Since it takes more pitches [minimum three] to record the K and even more when you give the free pass, I guess this holds out.  Let me know if you see flaws in the way I am using the numbers.  I’m new to the whole on demand stat reporting, and I’m positive this is extremely basic analysis and something you probably didn’t a spreadsheet for, but this is another reason I love baseball.  Have a theory that is commonly held?  Test it against the mountains of data that is recorded and stored for your use and prove it out.  

BTW, Mo looks even more badass just looking at this tiny fragment of data. 

~jboogz